


By Our Rules

by aurumdalseni (kyo_chan)



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:09:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24387985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyo_chan/pseuds/aurumdalseni
Summary: Gansey remembered Declan’s lost eyes when the police left the Barns the day Niall died. Ronan’s grief had been so loud he hadn’t heard Declan picking up the pieces behind him.
Relationships: Richard Gansey III/Declan Lynch
Comments: 8
Kudos: 32
Collections: TRC/ CDTH Prompt Week 2020





	By Our Rules

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a (hopefully) bigger endeavor for these two, a ship I love with my whole heart. Also written for the [TRC/Dreamer Trilogy Prompt Week](https://pynchpromptweek.tumblr.com/post/615677667456548864/trc-dreamer-trilogy-prompt-week-spring-2020) \- Day 2 prompt was hurt/comfort. If anyone needs to work some things out, while also deserving comfort, it's these two.
> 
> I was heavily inspired by [this post](https://lynchbrothers.tumblr.com/post/169405464271/declan-and-ganseys-relationship-would-literally) and [this one](https://gaily-daily.tumblr.com/post/93891036744/cries-into-the-night-i-need-a-new-fic-meme-where) when creating this. I am really excited for this piece - it was a RIDE. Hope you enjoy!

**It could have happened like this:**

“Jesus Christ, Gansey, get up. I know Ronan taught you better than this.”

Richard Gansey III was a picture on his hands and knees in the grass. Declan had no idea how satisfying it would be to see it. There were stains on his pinstripe suit pants. Declan had yet to go down, but one of the buttons of his crisp dress shirt had popped when Gansey snagged it in his fist. They had both encountered more sweat and dust than they started the evening with. It had been years since Declan had seen him like this, and it had a circularity to it, since that had likely been the last time they’d been truthful with one another.

“This is barbaric, Declan.” Gansey said, pushing up to his feet. He wiped his mouth and his hand came away red. He sighed. “Why is this the only way Lynches can communicate?”

Despite his protests, Declan was pleased to see him ease fluidly into a stance, raising his fists. 

“It’s the most honest thing about us.” That was the only warning Gansey got before Declan went for his face again.

**It should have happened like this:**

“I wanted to say thank you.”

Gansey drew his eyes away from the hungry sounding violins at the head of the room, landing on Declan Lynch’s face. What he held in his hand looked like champagne, but Gansey would have bet money it was ginger ale. His composure was as good as ever, no emotion on his face, no expression in his impeccable grey suit. Gansey took a sip off his own glass, turning back to the movement of silk and satin all around them, breathed in affluence and arrogance. And Declan’s cologne.

“You’re welcome, though I don’t know what I’ve done to warrant it.”

“I called the number you provided. Very helpful.”

For all the other guests would have known, Gansey could have been smiling about the stock market, the voter pool, or the latest agenda posted by his mother. But no, Gansey was pleased because the number had been on a card, cleverly slipped into the pocket of Declan’s blazer at their last social event. The therapist Gansey had been seeing since the road trip. 

“I’m glad you finally gave it a try.”

“I’m miserable.”

“The price of recovery.”

**It actually happened like this:**

Light and shadow were living things, playing across the sharp lines of Declan’s face, casting him both human and not in the time it took to blink. It was furiously attractive and painful all at once. Gansey didn’t know how to categorize any of it, and he blamed the whiskey. Turning back to the fire, he cradled his glass in his hands. Smoke was in his lungs, his filters had turned to ash.

“He’ll know we were here,” he said, because he didn’t know how to talk to Declan anymore. Easier to invoke Ronan, who still bound them with aching intensity. 

Ronan had gone away with Adam for the weekend.

Declan shrugged. “This is my home too.”

“Mmm.”

Gansey couldn’t tell if he’d done a good job of sounding agreeable, because all that filled his head was doubt. The Barns felt like Ronan’s, the old trees and haylofts harboring memories of the time Gansey had spent here before Niall died. Ronan’s dreams vastly outnumbered his father’s here. Declan could have returned when Ronan did, but he’d chosen to remain in his suburban townhouse, living his suburban life, all for reasons Gansey didn’t understand. And yet, it wasn’t Ronan who’d built this bonfire in the Lynch’s backyard firepit, and it wasn’t Ronan’s cheap beer he was drinking illicitly in the middle of the night. It also hadn’t been Ronan watching him rub shoulders with the wealthy and opinionated. It hadn’t been Ronan’s idea to leave the city and drive for two hours to drink at the Barns. 

It had been Declan’s. And Gansey had gotten into the Volvo without a second’s hesitation.

“Do you disagree?” Declan asked.

Gansey thought about it. He found himself weighing what Declan might be expecting to hear against what he might want to hear against what he actually believed. In the end, Gansey had to tell the truth. On a night like tonight, it felt like all he had. 

“Not entirely. But I also don’t know if I agree either.”

This seemed to satisfy Declan. He took a drink from his glass, and Gansey watched his throat. Reality had softer edges around them. His tolerance was high for things like wine and champagne. The whiskey felt a lot like the bonfire, something he wanted a little too much, smoky and all too willing to mess with his head. Which was to say, it felt a lot like Declan.

“A therapist, Gansey? Really?”

Heat pooled under Gansey’s cheekbones, even though he felt certain he had nothing to be ashamed of. The judgment in Declan’s tone cut sharply against his sensibilities, all while a little voice told him it might not be the idea of needing therapy he judged. 

He rallied in an even voice. “Are you saying it wouldn’t be helpful? Perhaps a bit more effective than resorting to fisticuffs as a form of self-expression.”

Declan laughed against the rim of his glass as he tossed the rest of its contents back. He reached for the bottle nestled in the grass, between their expensive pants and fancy shoes. It struck Gansey that he hadn’t noticed before, but all across Declan’s knuckles were the ghosts of fights, faded bruising and small cuts from the skin being split. Not all of them were recent, and they never made themselves known under the lights of fancy galas or at Lynch family dinners. 

“How many sessions did you complete?”

“One.”

Once more, Declan laughed, and Gansey wondered if he imagined it sounding sad compared to a moment ago. The sound of the liquor finding a home in the glass was seductive, alluring against the backdrop of the crackling fire. Declan refilled Gansey’s glass too. He had remarkable hands. 

“I’ve died twice,” Gansey said, and raised his glass as if he were toasting that fact. “About ten minutes in, I noticed that for every truthful thing I said about myself, there were two lies or half-truths or lies by omission hovering in the wings. Maybe you can live your life that way, but I certainly can’t.”

Gansey felt stabbed when Declan looked at him. These were not the dull eyes of a liar, nor the exasperated ones of a surrogate parent. Anything could have come out of his Lynch-shaped mouth just then, and Gansey squared his shoulders for it to descend. 

“Twice?” was all Declan said.

Now it was Gansey who laughed, a complicated noise that didn’t entirely come from his lungs. “’Near-death experiences, Mr. Gansey. You’re very alive right now,’” he mimicked the well-meaning doctor, not unkindly. How was she to know? The answer was simple. She couldn’t. And that’s why he’d never gone back. “My heart stopped twice. And no matter what the confidentiality clause says, there is no protection for myself or what I hold dear should I tell the complete truth.”

“You fucking hypocrite,” Declan said. 

A log split somewhere inside the fire with a crack, startling Gansey. His drink sloshed but didn’t spill. He felt like that log, lost in an inferno, broken open. That should have been an immediate indicator to stop drinking, and instead, he did the opposite. 

“I thought it could be different for you. That if you had gotten so good at lying about everything else, you could find a way to make sure it was as helpful for you as it wasn’t for me.”

Declan shook his head, upsetting the curls that the humidity had already loosened from the hold of deliberately applied gel. He looked so much more like the boy Gansey tussled with on this very property than he had in a long time. 

“You can’t just make new rules for the world to suit you, Gansey. That’s not how it works.”

“Don’t you take that tone with me Declan Lynch. My mother is in Congress, that’s exactly the way it works. And what about you? The rules change for you every time you open your mouth.”

“The rules already existed, and I changed myself for them.” 

His glass knocked against Gansey’s, and it was difficult to tell if it was a move of aggression or solidarity. The long drink he took suggested the latter. Gansey felt wrongly accused and yet the reality of how much that statement fit him started digging into his bones. They drank without speaking, Gansey watching Declan less than discreetly, and Declan noticing without hiding it. Gansey felt closer to Declan than he ever had before, still tightly wound in everything he’d shared with Ronan, from the moment they’d met. A collection of crossed paths at charity functions and political fundraisers had brought Gansey and Declan to this moment, and while that didn’t change how Gansey felt about Ronan, it did seem to be affecting how he felt about Declan. Whiskey had worn away the tattered wall around the anger he’d set aside at the fate of the entire Lynch family when Niall died. A burden that Declan had coldly picked up and carried along its path. 

Gansey no longer believed ‘cold’ applied. 

“Could you keep them?” he asked. His hands felt chilled, but there was sweat on his brow. He wasn’t looking at Declan anymore. “The parts of you that wouldn’t change?”

This, he concluded, was dangerous. 

“What do you think, Gansey?”

Gansey closed his eyes. What he wanted to say was that if he knew, he wouldn’t have asked. But instead, he rifled through his memories; he owed Declan that much. A sure hand on the gearshift only hours before, knowing looks stolen over the shoulders of politicians’ daughters. How the bland expression Declan had worn when he looked at the old paintings in the ballroom gallery actually seemed fond. It should have taken forever for Gansey to rifle through interactions with Declan over the last several months, the last few years, but time was as fluid at the Barns as it had been in Cabeswater. And now Gansey was Cabeswater. He drew on the patience and wisdom of trees who’d waited for someone to notice, to look deeper and hear what they were saying.

Gansey remembered Declan’s lost eyes when the police left the Barns the day Niall died. Ronan’s grief had been so loud he hadn’t heard Declan picking up the pieces behind him. 

He opened his eyes, and Declan was looking at him. Gansey had his hand over his mouth. Something inside him felt like it was unraveling again. No therapist could have ever gotten this deep under his skin, and yet Declan hadn’t even been trying. 

How wrong he’d been about everything.

“God, Declan. I missed you.” 

Gansey slid down to the ground, not a single care for getting dirty. Declan made a noise of surprise, but it was practically swallowed by the fire. Gansey rested his head against his thigh, breathing in the wood smoke scent of him. His tongue tasted like whiskey and everything felt fuzzy around him. But he still knew what truth felt like, what relief and need and ache felt like. Declan pushed his fingers into Gansey’s hair, lightly rubbing his fingertips against his scalp. Gansey felt tears sliding down his face. This wasn’t therapy, and it felt like the bruises after scuffling with the Lynch brothers. But he felt safe here. With Declan’s fire and his lies rubbed away, and their honesty concentrated down into a bottle that would never go dry. 

Minutes or hours could have passed by after that. The night seemed endless.

Declan told him, “I missed you too, Gansey.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me about Declansey or TRC/TDT over at [my blog](http://oldkingyounggod.tumblr.com)!


End file.
